The SFCP Library was established to serve the members and candidates of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and to educate other mental health professionals and the public at large on the discipline of psychoanalysis. The library collection holds books, journals and other materials for the study of psychoanalysis in theoretical, applied and clinical applications. Library services include, but are not limited to, acquisition of books.

Community Membership is a new category of membership at SFCP established in 2008 that was created to enrich and broaden the Center by inviting psychoanalytic psychotherapists in the Bay Area to join SFCP. We welcome mental health clinicians and students of all disciplines and levels of experience into our Community Membership.

Newsletter

The Seasoned Clinicians Program, 2014

by Jan Messer, MFT and Laura Dansky, PhD

The Seasoned Clinicians Program is finishing its second year of operation. The first two years of the program covered a wide range of topics that included: transference analysis; therapeutic action, obstacles to change, defense analysis, aging and death, poetry and dreams, attachment and early development, power, suggestion and love in the therapeutic dyad, and the oedipal situation.

San Francisco Psychotherapy Forum 2013-2014

by Sheena Craig, MFT & Gary Grossman, PhD

This was another successful year for the Psychotherapy Forum in San Francisco. Although we had a significant dip in attendance for October and November, after a strong September beginning, the remaining months of the academic year all had a minimum of 10 participants with a substantial increase (24!) for April’s child case presentation.

Membership Division News

by Meryl Botkin, PhD, Chair

It is hard to believe that we are at the end of the 2013-2014 academic year, all of us looking forward to some valued time off this summer and towards an exciting 2014-2015 Fall. I wanted to give everyone a rundown of our year in the Membership Division.

We started the year off with our Annual MIC (Membership Integration Committee) party in the fall to the music of Craig Williams’ band. The MIC party allows all of our membership to meet and talk with others in an informal way; around seventy people attended.

Coming up next fall, on September 13th 2014, the MIC will sponsor our annual party and acknowledge the donors to our building by unveiling our new donor wall. Look for a SAVE THE DATE for the event.

Report from the Psychoanalytic Education Division Outreach Committee

by Margot Beattie, PhD, Shela Fisk, PhD & Gary Grossman, PhD

In addition to hosting the February 20th Open House for interested people in the community, the Outreach Committee of the Psychoanalytic Education Division (PED), in collaboration with the SF Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program’s (SF PPTP) Outreach Committee, decided to host smaller programs oriented towards specific groups.

Psychoanalytic Education Division Update

PED Graduation

by Laurie Case, PhD, Chair, Curriculum Committee

On Saturday, May 17, our community gathered to celebrate the graduation of five analysts from SFCP's adult track. Those analysts were Leora Benioff, Jeanne Leary, Kyra Minninger, Sarah Lewis Stadler and Naomi Janowitz. The graduation speaker was Lee Grossman, who graciously agreed to step in for Barbara McSwain. (Happily, Barbara has agreed to speak next year). Dr. Grossman's presentation was full of humor, a send up of the plethora of ideological schisms that have characterized psychoanalysis from its beginning. But laughter aside, or perhaps along side, Dr. Grossman spoke of the way psychoanalysts may cling to theoretical conviction as a way of evading the anxieties inherent in our work—our fear of hurting our patients, our anxiety in the face of uncertainty, an uncertainty which he sees as inevitable and inevitably painful but ultimately crucial.

Palo Alto Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program

by Dena Sorbo, LCSW, BCD, Program Chair

This year has flown by and has been a full one for PAPPTP. In addition to starting our fourth training class of nine, we have had our second Fellowship Year Program and two ongoing case conferences for the PAPPTP community. During the year we also sponsored three workshops for current and alumni PAPPTP members: one preceding the Visiting Professor with Eric Glassgold and Ric Almond; a workshop on Practice Development with Renee Spencer, Maureen Smith Ruffell and Mike Smith and a workshop on the Meanings of Money in clinical work with Mary Jane Otte and Ann Martini.

President’s Message

by Robin Deutsch, PhD

In slightly more than the blink of an eye, another academic year has gone by; analytic graduation has passed and psychoanalytic psychotherapy graduation is soon to be upon us. It seems that such a short time ago, I was writing my first newsletter column as President, and now, I have arrived at my final newsletter column. On June 30, I will step down as SFCP President.

About SFCP

The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis was organized in 2007, combining the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute & Society, founded in 1941, with the San Francisco Foundation for Psychoanalysis, founded in 1991. The SFCP is a not for profit organization with more than 160 practicing analysts and more than 45 candidates (psychoanalysts in training).

The Center provides an extensive training program in psychoanalysis. The Center also sponsors a large, vibrant Extension Division which offers classes and seminars to mental health professionals as well as to the general public. In addition, it maintains Low / Moderate Fee Referral Services for adults, children and adolescents as well as providing other mental health services and programs for the general community.